


The Short Second Life Of Joseph Kavinsky

by robindrake93



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Blood, Conflict, M/M, The Dream Thieves Spoilers, back from the dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 03:07:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18885931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robindrake93/pseuds/robindrake93
Summary: Joseph is back from the dead.





	The Short Second Life Of Joseph Kavinsky

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by [Jenetic777](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenetic777/pseuds/Jenetic777). The title comes from a novella called _The Short Second Life Of Bree Turner_ , however I thought it was fitting for this fic.
> 
> I had the idea that Adam can't provide for Ronan what Kavinsky did and that he would, in fact, be horrified to learn of what deviances they got up to together.

       No matter how Joseph twisted and turned, he could not find a single thing wrong with himself. Not a freckle out of place, not a joint too long, not a single shade off. Joseph appeared the same now as he always did when he dared to look into a mirror. He would have thought that Ronan had somehow gotten it wrong. That  _something_ would be off because Ronan was incapable of making perfect copies of anything. There was always something wrong with his copies and people were much harder to duplicate than cars.

 

        The knowledge that Ronan knew Joseph's body this intimately zipped through him like lightning and tightened his chest. All of the times they'd fallen into drug-induced nudity together, Joseph had resigned himself to being a body for Ronan but now Ronan surprised him with how sharp his eyes had been, with how much he had been looking. The emotion behind such a thing made it difficult to pull air into his lungs.

 

        The intimate look into Ronan's mind was not a miracle nor an indication of how well Joseph knew Ronan. Joseph was a dream thing and as such, he knew every little thing about his dreamer. Even the things that Ronan kept buried in his subconscious, that he tried not to think about. Joseph knew all of the truths that Ronan kept in his heart.

 

       Joseph wiped at his glistening eyes. What they had...it was  _ beautiful _ . It was too bad that Joseph had died before he realized just how meaningful their relationship was to Ronan.

 

       Joseph knew that he was dead because Ronan thought about his death quite frequently. Ronan thought about him dying while Joseph was on his knees blowing him. He thought about it while Joseph was balls deep inside of him. He thought about it while they were sitting on the white hood of Joseph's Mitsubishi, sharing a drink or a cigarette. On the occasions they were quiet and soft with each other, Ronan's thoughts would broadcast loudly into Joseph's skull:  _ I wish that we'd had this before you died. _

 

       Joseph wished for that as well.

 

       God, he wanted a pill. Anything to take his mind off of Ronan's sharp and glaring attention. The medicine cabinet provided no medications stronger than aspirin. Aspirin couldn't fix the kind of pain that Joseph was in. He searched the entire bathroom from top to bottom and found nothing that would get him high. Not even a cigarette to take off the edge. As was his way, Joseph left a mess in his wake. Ronan would forgive him for the mess, like he always did, even though this was Ronan's childhood home.

 

       When he was through with his search, Joseph pulled the clothes on one at a time, covering up Ronan's masterpiece. They were not his clothes - he had come into this world without even a scrap of clothing – but clothes that Ronan had lent him. The clothes became armor, would protect him from the beast outside the bathroom. It was shitty armor but it smelled like Ronan. Joseph unlocked the bathroom door and stepped out. A different kind of mess was waiting for him, one that was tangled and barbed like thorns, and one that he didn't directly make.

 

       Ronan and Parrish's heads moved in unison to look at Joseph as he exited the bathroom. Ronan's expression was as though one was doing surgery on him without anesthetic; twisted up in a painful resignation. Parrish looked like the surgeon from hell; eyes burning with hellfire and shaking fists curled into his sides. When Parrish opened his mouth to berate Joseph, Joseph wasn't listening. His acidic words rolled off of Joseph like water off oil.

 

       Joseph knew about Parrish. Ronan liked him a lot. He did not like him for the same reasons that he had liked Joseph. Ronan's relationship with Parrish was not about passion or feeling alive. Parrish was something of a convenience: he didn't have to choose between Gansey and Parrish because Gansey owned Parrish the same as he did Ronan. Though it was not quite as thoroughly as he owned Ronan, Gansey would much prefer to have partial hold on Parrish than no hold on Joseph. Which was why the mating was approved and encouraged by Gansey. Gansey was the mysterious pimp to a bunch of bitches and that was the damnedest thing in Joseph's opinion. It rankled him even though he was dead.

 

       Sure, Joseph had wanted to own Ronan. But he had also wanted to  _ be _ owned.

 

       Joseph ignored Parrish's rant to stride to Ronan's side; the place he belonged. He pressed his flat chest to Ronan's arm and curled his fingers around Ronan's wrist. “Got a cigarette, Lynch?” Ronan was two inches taller than Joseph. When he was alive, it bothered Joseph. Now that he was a dream thing, he found that he liked it.

 

       Ronan didn't look at Joseph directly while he dug a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He passed them to Joseph with an order, “Outside.”

 

       Parrish's eyes narrowed.

 

       Joseph bravely turned his back on Parrish to slip out the door. He was on a farm that he hadn't been to even in Ronan's dreams. The air felt too clean for his blackened lungs. Joseph plopped down on a rocking chair and opened the pack of cigarettes. There was a lighter inside. He lit up and his nerves settled with the first hit of nicotine. He picked up a nail off the ground to keep his hands busy while he smoked.

 

       Ronan’s childhood home was a strange place to Joseph. It was vastly different from the plastic mansions that Joseph had grown up in and even though he didn’t want to live here, part of him ached for lived in/loved in atmosphere. Joseph made a game of guessing what was a dream thing and what was real.

 

       Inside the house there was a fight going on. Parrish accused Ronan of a multitude of things. Joseph didn’t try to make out the words but he knew that Ronan was trying to do damage control. Something inside the house shattered. It was difficult to say whether it was Ronan or Parrish who broke things now because it was something that both of them did well, but Joseph would put his money on Parrish. Rationality did not favor him.

 

       Joseph blew smoke in the direction of the cows. His black eyes didn’t blink. He finished one cigarette then started another. A stray thought of lighting the farm house on fire crossed his mind but if he did that then Ronan would stop dreaming him. He was so strange about his possessions. Which was what got Joseph killed in the first place. Matthew was a topic they had fought about several times in the beginning, when Ronan first dreamed him. Joseph still stood by his kidnapping of Ronan's dream brother. It wasn't like he'd taken anything that  _ mattered  _ or that would be difficult to replace.

 

       The front door was thrown open and bounced off the wall. Parrish stalked out, the fury in his eyes was familiar to Joseph. It’s how his father had looked before trying to kill him. It made him shudder on the inside. Parrish stopped several feet away but still too close for Joseph’s liking. “Why  _ you _ ?” The words were spat out like they left a foul taste in Parrish’s mouth.

 

       Joseph lolled his head to look at Parrish. He flicked the ashes of his cigarette. His gaze flickered to Ronan as he slunk out silently. There were a lot of answers to that question but Joseph had a pretty good idea of why him. He turned his attention back to the cows because it was easier to look at them. Joseph watched Parrish from the corner of his eye, ready to jump to his own defense should it come to that. “You ever wonder why my face was always fucked up?”

 

       Parrish cocked his head like a dumb dog puzzled over a new toy. He studied Joseph for several long moments. The wheels turned as his mind tried to come up with similarities between himself and Joseph. “So he likes broken boys?”

 

       That was a good assumption. Ronan's tastes did run towards the fractured of society, the dregs, the ones with sharp edges. But that's not what Joseph was getting at. The laugh he let out was bitter as cyanide and sharp as thorns. He showed his teeth.

 

       Behind Parrish, Ronan's eyes turned dark. There was a warning in the set of his mouth.

 

Joseph ignored the warning. “Ronan likes _ making  _ boys broken.”

 

       Parrish had gotten in to Aglionby via hard work and to do that, he had to be fucking smart. Parrish understood exactly what Joseph meant about ten seconds after he said it. He rounded on Ronan, the first indication he’d given that he noticed his boyfriend was there. “You...you...”

 

       “ Liked to make me bleed,” Joseph said mildly. Joseph couldn’t count the number of times that Ronan had smacked him, punched him, bitten and clawed him until he was dripping blood. So many ruined shirts, ruined sheets, ruined back seats. Joseph had just dreamed up more. He licked his lips now, imagined he could still taste his own blood.

 

       The look on Parrish’s face was of utmost betrayal. He looked at Ronan like he didn’t know who he was. “You got off on hurting him?”

 

       Joseph didn’t even try to keep the smirk off his face.

 

       Ronan wouldn’t meet Parrish’s eye but he had no trouble glaring at Joseph. His glare held barely contained hot rage and it sent a pleasant shiver down Joseph’s spine. It was the look Ronan always gave before he threw a punch or pulled Joseph into a bruising kiss. “Don’t lie to him, K.”

 

       Ronan had always been cruel with his words but now he surprised even Joseph. The casual way he’d converted to his nickname for Joseph, the barbed wire hope he just wrapped around Parrish’s heart. Joseph waited until Parrish had turned to him again before putting the cigarette out on his own arm. He flicked the butt onto the porch and examined the burn. It was so good to feel something. “Fine. I mauled him on a regular basis too. Left my mark all over his skin.” And inside of Ronan, fucked him raw and filled him up and took perverse pleasure in thoroughly making Ronan his...if only for a moment. Joseph hooded his eyes. “Did you know he likes being choked?”

 

       Parrish had gone completely still. The gears of his mind worked, went back to analyze every one of Ronan’s actions. There was a fierce denial in his eyes, a double edged sword of hope that Joseph was lying. Finally, he half turned to Ronan. “Do you?” The way he said it made it sound innocent.

 

       Ronan’s jaw tensed from gritting his teeth, hands curled into fists over his chest. His eyes held violence and the hooks of his tattoo threatened to carry it out. “He’s dead,” Ronan hissed.

 

       Joseph ignored the sting in his heart. “Right here,” he corrected softly. He went unnoticed.

 

       “ Answer the question, Ronan.”

 

       “ Yes,” Ronan spat. Now he wasn't looking at either of them. His gaze was firmly on the ground. His body was tight with tension.

 

       When Parrish moved he was an explosion of violence. His fist went through the wooden wall of the house. There was a lot of power and rage packed into that punch.

 

       Ronan and Joseph both knew that the wall was not what Parrish wanted to hit.

 

       Parrish panted, fist still embedded in the wood. He didn’t look at either of them. No one said anything, no one moved.

 

       Joseph enjoyed the show. He almost wished he was still alive so that he could enjoy this properly. But if he was then Ronan would have chosen him over Gansey and Parrish wouldn’t have been part of the equation. Another secret: Ronan settled for Parrish because he'd let his last boyfriend die.

 

       “It’s abuse!” Parrish finally pulled his fist from the wall. There was blood on his knuckles, wood embedded in his skin.

 

       Ronan did not exactly think of what they did as abusive. He knew it was theoretically bad and it was mutually destructive but abuse was a strong word for something that had been mutually consensual. However, this was why he'd never brought it up with Parrish. Why he stifled his darker, more urgent desires. Parrish wouldn't understand.

 

       Joseph finally took pity on his old flame. “It isn’t abuse when both parties consent, jackass.” He absently flicked the nail across his wrist. In their standoff, they didn't notice. “Our sex might have gone off the safe and sane rails but we stayed on the consensual one.” Which was mostly true.

 

       Parrish made a noise like he was dying of some deeply unpleasant. He hit the wall again. Again, it was not what he really wanted to hit. “And that’s your kink? Being cruel to your partner?” This was not directed at Joseph. Apparently only Ronan was on trial. The disgust in his voice was clear to both of them. “You hit him and it makes your dick harder?” 

 

       Joseph was suddenly thrown into a flashback. Writhing beneath Ronan, sheets tangled beneath him, so close to cumming but unable to get there even though Ronan was doing his damnedest, had looked so beautiful and dangerous. “Hit me,” Joseph had said. He’d begged. “Hit me, Ronan, hit me.” When he’d sensed hesitance he’d begged harder, “Fucking hit me, Ro. Come on, baby.” He’d put his hand on Ronan’s cheek, an unusually tender gesture. “Hit me like I’d fucked your baby brother.” Ronan smacked him so hard there was a handprint bruise on his face for a week after that and Joseph had cum so hard he’d blacked out. Ronan had cum right after that, Joseph’s name on his lips for the first time.

 

       When the flashback was over, Joseph found that Parrish was still firing questions that sounded like accusations. The house had suffered more damage to it but Parrish wasn’t hitting either of them. Yet. Finally, Parrish shook his head. “I need to be away from you. Both of you. I need to...” then he was stalking away towards a piece of shit car. A few minutes later he was gone and it was just Joseph and Ronan.

 

       Joseph waited all of forty seconds before rising to his feet and sauntering over to Ronan with his hands behind his back. He ran the nail over his wrist again, nearly shivered at the feeling of metal cutting into his flesh. The fingertips of his unharmed hand danced up Ronan’s abdomen to his chest where he rested his palm lightly.

 

       Ronan gripped Joseph's wrist so tightly the little bones within ground together.

 

       “How do you stand someone you can’t be yourself around?” Joseph asked, tried to make it sound sincere instead of mocking. Hot blood ran down his other hand and dripped onto the porch boards. Dizziness made his vision fuzzy.

 

       “I’m more than what I was with you,” Ronan replied in a tone that made it sound like he was reciting a line in a play.

 

       “Oh sweetheart, you always burned so much brighter with me.” Joseph was dead but he was still in love with Ronan. He tipped his face up and kissed him.

 

       Ronan kissed him back. His teeth sank into Joseph's bottom lip, hard enough to produce blood. There was blood on his lips when he pulled back. “You can't stay, K.”

 

       Joseph nodded. He revealed his bleeding wrist without fanfare. The blood flowing from his wrist was bright red like the cherry on the end of a cigarette. “You shouldn't have to settle, Ro.”

 

       Ronan looked from Joseph's black eyes to his blood and back again. With a gentle touch, Ronan took Joseph's bleeding wrist in both hands. “There's no one else like you.” He kissed the wound and it covered his mouth and chin with glistening red. Ronan licked his lips. His eyes were dark, dark.

 

       Joseph shivered. His head felt light. “I'll see you on the other side.” He pressed his wrist to Ronan's mouth again.

 

       “ See you, K.” Ronan opened his red mouth and sank his teeth into Joseph's flesh. He tore at Joseph's careful cuts until they were the jagged wounds of an animal. One hand slipped around Joseph's waist to stop him from falling.

 

       Joseph clung to Ronan as his strength drained out through the mess that was his wrist. He watched Ronan for as long as he could, memorized his face in its perfect, handsome sharpness. This was a much better way to die, Joseph decided.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know your thoughts.


End file.
